**The shrinking suggests your dough needed more relaxation before stretching.** It was elastic—it sprang back—but wasn’t sufficiently *extensible*, meaning easy to stretch. Forcing resistant dough can then tear it. The flour and fermentation schedule may also have contributed.

Here’s what I would change:

- **Rest whenever it resists.** Stop stretching, cover it, and wait 15–20 minutes before trying again. Dividing, balling, or kneading dough makes it tighten again, so it needs a rest *after* those steps—even if it previously rested for hours. Two hours out of the refrigerator may also leave a large lump cold inside. [King Arthur’s shaping guidance](https://www.kingarthurbaking.com/blog/2024/02/14/how-to-stretch-pizza-dough)

- **Weigh your flour and water.** Assuming US fluid ounces, your water was about 355 g. Four cups of flour could weigh roughly 480–600 g depending on how you filled the cups, giving approximately **59–74% hydration**. That’s a substantial difference: the wetter version would be noticeably sticky. Adding flour during shaping makes the ratio less predictable; use enough to prevent sticking without kneading more into the dough.

- **Check your flour and gluten development.** Choose flour intended for pizza or bread; weak pastry flour can tear easily. “00” alone doesn’t guarantee suitable strength. Neapolitan specifications call for roughly 11–13.5% protein, alongside other strength characteristics. After kneading and a short rest, a small piece should stretch into a thin membrane before tearing. [AVPN specifications](https://www.pizzanapoletana.org/public/pdf/Disciplinare_AVPN_2022_en.pdf)

- **Match the yeast to the fermentation schedule.** One teaspoon of dry yeast followed by eight hours warm and two days refrigerated could produce excessive fermentation, especially in a warm room. That’s a plausible contributor to sticky, weakened dough, though strong spring-back alone doesn’t establish overfermentation. Use a recipe designed specifically for a 48-hour refrigerated ferment; shorten the initial warm rise or reduce the yeast accordingly.

For shaping, press outward from the center, leave the rim thicker, and stretch gradually while supporting the dough. Cover and pause if it fights you. A rolling pin gets it flat but presses out gas that helps create the airy rim.

You haven’t necessarily missed an ingredient. Sugar is optional for home pizza and absent from traditional Neapolitan dough. **The first fixes I’d try are weighing the ingredients and allowing a covered rest after balling—and again whenever the dough springs back.**